Sourcing Properties

I know there are buyers agents. They sell properties which sometimes are off-market. Basically you pay them to find you a property that matches your criteria. I haven’t never used buyers agents. Would be appreciated to see if someone here has experience on this.

JT

Sonyasal,

How do you so confident buying property without seeing it first?
I do understand you have done your due dilligence (research, pest/building, google earth etc)

But I am still to afraid to do it

i speak to local councils to find out what developments may be planned for the area as well as what the different employers are in the area. Steer clear of towns that have the majority of their residents employed by one big employer such as mines. if the business closes you lose tenants fast.

i also speak to property managers before the sales agent. Asking them which areas of town rent well as well as which areas are more troublesome for both locating and retaining tenants. i also find out what type of property is in most demand and what price bracket for weekly rental. this then helps me to narrow down which areas of town to look at as well as property types.
Property managers tend to give a more honest answer regarding properties as they are dealing with landlords for a longer time than sales agents who have little if anything to do with the purchaser once the sale has gone thru. Property managers do not wnat unhappy landlords ringing them every day wanting to know why the property isn't tenanted yet.

i work full time and am a single mother with three primary aged chidlren, i don't have time to travel to view properties so i ask lots of questions of many different agents. Having said that, I completely trust one of my property managers and have just bought  a second property in the sam town after having her inspect properties listed by other agents until i found one that I was completely happy with. She had a tenant in the property, paying rent before i seetled.

Cheers

Sonya

good luck

Sonya

@ JustinT – Buyers agents can be helpful but their fees are ridiculous. The average investor can’t afford to pay for a buyers agent. Most of them charge at least 2% on your purchase price (which works out to be around $8,000 on a $400,000 property). Plus I find that buyers agents always want to push their own agenda and not try to fit in with your specific investment strategy. I have had a bad run in with a buyers agent who told me I couldn’t invest in positive cashflow property and I was wasting my money. He was pushing his own agenda for high capital growth property.

@ Janrayco – Finding positive cashflow property requires a lot of time and effort to work out how to find them. Try rural towns to start with and avoid single units because the Strata fees usually take away any positive cashflow you may make.
If you want someone to find the properties for you try CashFlowInvestor.com.au it is a subscription based positive cashflow finder service….that was a mouthful. They charge a monthly subscription and no percentage of the purchase price. It is WAY cheaper than a buyers agent.